


broken words i've tried to say

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Bucky Barnes Remembers, First Kiss, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2014-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-03 11:30:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1743131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the winter soldier is trying to remember, and steve thinks that all he really needs is a tiny little push and somehow it'll all come back</p>
            </blockquote>





	broken words i've tried to say

**Author's Note:**

> wowza so this little fic took over my life for a few days and it is my baby so don't go too hard on me ok
> 
> this fic is 100% dedicated to carla, shelby, and jess
> 
> kudos/comments/constructive criticism are all very much appreciated (this is 100% un-beta'd by anyone other than me so all mistakes are my own!)
> 
> find me on twitter @starkbucky and tumblr: www.starkbuckys.tumblr.com
> 
> oh btw i know nothing about neurology so this probably makes no sense whatsoever from a scientific standpoint so please look past all that and enjoy the angsty cuteness ^__^

\+ + +

It’s hard for Steve to try to forget the way his heart hammered in his chest when he saw the winter soldier for the first time (without a gun in his hand and a murderous look in his eyes, that is.)

“Steve, you’ve got to calm down,” Fury had said, placing a hand on his shoulder. Steve was shaking, eyes widened in disbelief as he watched Bucky ( _his_  Bucky,  _fuck_ ) walk around his room in the infirmary. “Steve, listen to me for a minute,” Fury tried again, and Steve had looked at him that time. 

“He doesn’t remember anything,” Fury says quietly, finally capturing his attention, and Steve’s head whips around, eyes red and shining with unshed tears, fists clenched by his sides.

“What do you mean by-"

“He doesn’t remember  _you_ , Steve,” Fury corrects and Steve thinks he’s going to be sick. He shakes his head, looking down at Bucky’s smiling face in the room below them and slapping a hand over his mouth. Fury frowns, reaching for him as Steve starts running

“Steve don’t do this,” Fury calls, but his efforts are futile, and he knows it. “Whatever you’re planning on saying, it’s not going to work, Captain,” is the last thing Steve hears before he bursts through the door. Bucky’s eyes widen, and his lips twist into a smile that’s so painfully  _Bucky_ and Steve feels home for the first time in 70 years.

He’s reminded of the time he had told Fury that when he went to sleep, the world had been at war. When he had woke up, everyone told him they had won.

He’s always been reminded of what they lost.

 

\+ + +

 

Stark sets up an entirely new section in his lab dedicated to working with Banner to come up with a way to try to jog Bucky’s memory back. It takes a few days for him to be fully satisfied with the knowledge that he has all the kinks worked out, before finally handing the device over to Fury. Steve’s immediately skeptically, the random snippets of conversation he picked up on between Stark and Banner not reassuring him at all.

Everyone holds their breath when Fury puts the device to Bucky’s temple, and squeezes the trigger. It whines loudly while Bucky cries out in pain, flesh and bone hand immediately clutching that side of his head as he grits his teeth together. 

“Just relax,” Stark says, looking concerned. “It’s trying to access the parts of your brain that hold all your memories; the ones that are still there, anyway. It’s targeting those little holding cells and telling them to release; you’re fighting it, and that’s why it hurts so damn bad,” he says and Bucky shakes his head, panting.

“It’s slightly more complicated than that, Stark, trust me,” he says, tone bitter and Tony throws his hands up in mock surrender, retreating to the other side of the laboratory as a sign of his defeat. 

Steve’s fingers clench and unclench with the need to touch, to be suffocatingly close to the man who has his heart, even if only for a second. His fingertips are practically on fire with need, wanting so badly to swipe Bucky’s sweaty hair back, ghost his fingers over his collarbones, kiss him like he’s saying every word he never said.  He keeps his distance though, as Fury suggested, pacing along the other side of the room and watching. 

“Fuck!” Bucky shouts again when the needle pricks at his skin and Fury pulls away. Stark grabs the trigger device and places it in a case, locking it shut.

“That's enough for today,” he says, and Steve turns away when Bucky brings his metal fist down on the table. Everyone winces at the sound, the sickening crunch of metal against metal making them all a little weak at the knees with the memories of New York.

“I'm trying, I-” Bucky falters, pulling at his long hair. Steve’s heart hurts. “I-Steve, I promise I'm trying.” 

“I believe you,” Steve says, trying to say it without a crack in his voice. “I believe you, Bucky.”

Steve tries to miss the way he flinches at the name.

“There's just- there's something missing,” Bucky mutters, starting to pace, rubbing at the spot on his temple where Fury had tried to trigger his memory. “Sometimes I can feel it, like it's right there and then it just, it shorts out,” Bucky says, closing his eyes. Steve swallows, heart beating rapidly in his chest.

“What image is there right before everything fades out?” Steve says, walking over to the hologram controls, poised to record his answer. Stark would be so proud.

“I-” Bucky falters slightly. “It's the same thing every time,” he says, and Steve nods, tapping it out onto the screen.

“Is it a scene, a landscape, a memory, a-”

“It's you,” Bucky whispers and Steve whips his head around so fast his neck cracks. Every nerve in his body is suddenly alive with an aching familiarity, and his heart pounds in his chest to a beat of hope. His fingertips tingle with the need to touch, but he restrains himself one more time. “You- we're in this alleyway, and we're, we're really close to each other and I can feel that you're about to do something, but then I close my eyes and when I open them I'm back here,” Bucky says and Steve starts walking towards him on stunned legs.

“Bucky...”

“Steve please,” he practically cries and Steve's heart aches. “Please tell me what I'm missing, I know they’re something, I can't fucking breathe-” Bucky says, gasping for air and Steve surges forward then, gathering the soldier up in his arms and pushing him against the wall. Bucky struggles against Steve's iron grip until Steve whispers  _relax_  and he does. Steve’s mind whirls with the knowledge that their roles used to be reversed, that Bucky used to be the one to do this for him, and it’s just another reminder added to the long list of things that have changed since they were running around Brooklyn together. Bucky leans his forehead against Steve's shoulder, and it takes all of Steve's superhuman willpower not to thread his fingers through long hair and press lips to heated skin. He drinks in every bit of the moment, determined to hold on for as long as he possibly can. It’s obviously that putting the soldier out of his own head, taking just enough control away from him, is working. Steve can practically see the wheels attempting to turn inside his tired brain.

“You're not ready to know that yet,” Steve breathes and Bucky makes a disgruntled sound, pushing Steve away. Steve drops him, the moment lost. Disappointment flares up in his chest, and his stomach twists into knots at the idea that he’s just blown this thing all to hell.

“Oh, fuck you Steve,” he spits with a threatening venom that has Steve's arm twitching like he wants to make a move for his shield, even though it isn’t even in the room. “Seriously, what the hell is so incredibly painful or life-changing that no one seems to want to tell-” and Steve can't fucking do it anymore, he just breaks. He thinks  _fuck it_ and  _i miss you_ all in the same breath and pushes Bucky against the wall again. He doesn't meet Bucky's eyes before he raises a hand, focusing instead on his cheek, thumb swiping over his cheekbone as he pushes forward, sealing their lips together. The kiss starts slow and gets slightly faster when Bucky realizes it’s working, and he can feel something falling into place; something familiar reaching out to touch him.

Bucky stiffens when their lips meet but he doesn't pull away, clinging to Steve's broad shoulders. His eyebrows scrunch up with the effort he's putting in to thinking because he can feel it; it's right fucking there and remembering is so close it leaves a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth.

Steve moves his hands then, gripping Bucky's shoulders tightly, grounding him. He pulls back minutely, pressing a tiny kiss to the corner of Bucky's kiss bitten lips before sealing them again, harder this time. It has to work, he thinks. He doesn't have anything else after this.

 

Suddenly Bucky's eyes fly open, and his brain feels like it might explode from the white hot firecrackers igniting through his entire body.

 

Suddenly, it all comes back.

 

+

 

“Don't do anything stupid until I get back.” 

“How can I, you're taking all the stupid with you.”

“You're a punk.”

“Jerk.”

 

+

 

“It's Steve, it's me-”

“Steve?”

“Come on- I thought you were dead.”

“I thought you were smaller.”

 

+

 

“Just go, get out of here!”

“No, not without you!”

 

+

 

“Bucky?”

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

 

+

 

“I'm not going to fight you Buck; you're my friend.”

“You're- my mission.”

“Then finish it, cuz I'm with you- 'till the end of the line, pal.”

 

+

 

“That man on the bridge… who was he?"

 

+

 

“But I knew him."

 

+

 

Bucky screams, pushing Steve backwards, clutching the sides of his head. He's shaking with the effort of holding on it; now that he has it back, he's terrified of losing it. His fingers feel jerky and uncoordinated, head even mores, on the verge of another panic attack just at the thought of the new found knowledge escaping his grasp too quickly.

He practically has everything, everything he wanted to know and everything he didn’t as well. He feels everything all at once, and the voices come flooding back through his head, the sounds get jumbled up together.

He hears Steve's laugh from the night at the bar after Steve rescued him from the HYDRA camp and he hears the scream that fell from Steve's lips when the metal couldn't hold and he hears the muffled moans that escaped their lips the nights they spent crammed against each other in the barracks and he remembers the way Steve would whisper things in his ear that were only meant for him; no one else would ever know, and those were the words he cherished the most.

Steve watches with his heart rabbiting in his chest, jumping backwards when Bucky looks up at him suddenly, eyes snapping upwards to meet his.

“I know you. I've known you my whole life,” he says, with a conviction that has Steve's knees threatening to give out. Steve can't speak, and even if he could, he wouldn't know what to say. 

“My name is James Buchanan Barnes and I think sometimes that you're still that little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to run away from a fight,” he finishes, and Steve's lips find his again right as Fury walks in the room with a  _what the hell is going on here_.

 

\+ + +

 

There’s something quite beautiful about the way the light catches the metal lining Bucky's arm and illuminates it into a color that can only be described as  _him,_ and there’s something even more striking about the way Steve accepts every part of him. 

No matter what happens, and no matter who they might become, Bucky will always be Steve’s home, and Steve will always welcome him in no matter what.


End file.
